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Below is a statement issued by the plaintiffs through their attorneys, Wasserman, Comden, Casselman & Esensten about today’s court decision:
The Court issued a thoughtful, 25 page, single spaced opinion. It overrules the SAG defendants motion to strike the breach of fiduciary duty cause of action, seeking a recovery of attorney’s fees. It also rejects defendants motions to dismiss the federal breach of fiduciary duty claim, the California breach of fiduciary duty claim, the federal breach of contract claim and reserves jurisdiction to address all of those causes of action by trial on the merits. Therefore, the litigation continues on the merits, even though the Court declined to grant the requested preliminary injunction.
We are disappointed by the decision not to issue a preliminary injunction, but we are encouraged by the detail of the analysis of the Court. It includes specific findings allowing the lawsuit to proceed on the merits, including the right to recover damages and attorneys fees. Among other disputed issues, the Court considered the SAG claim that Appendix I was no longer in effect after March 29, 2008. After considering all of the evidence, the Court elected to “work under the assumption that Appendix I is in effect.”
At its core, the decision indicates that because of the efforts of the plaintiffs, the members had reason to know that no actuarial study was done analyzing the impact of a merger on their pension or health benefits. The Court found that members received ample information from the Plaintiffs Voter Information Packet and website to alert them to the absence of an actuarial study. To the extent that this lawsuit provided beneficial information to the members, it served a valuable purpose. Unfortunately, only time will tell whether or not the concerns brought to light by this litigation were heeded.
Our greatest concern is that a year from now, members who voted for the merger will find out that, as this lawsuit predicts, their pension and health benefits will be diminished and the split earnings issue will effectively continue. Members will still be unable to qualify for benefits because their combined earnings will likely have to exceed an increased earnings threshold. Plaintiffs continue to believe that the decision of the union not to conduct a professional, actuarial study, was done intentionally to hide those findings from a membership that needed to know the truth. The Court made no finding to the contrary.
The bottom line is the decision to press for merger, claiming that lawyers, not actuaries, could assure the members that their benefits will be safe, may well end up creating legal liability for the consequences of things to come. Assuming the merger passes and benefits decline as predicted, there is ample information in the record to justify class-action lawsuits against those responsible for inducing “yes” for merger votes. Hopefully, no member will be harmed as a result of what transpires. Only time will tell.”
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The SAG AFTRA building is located next to the La Brea tar pits…we need to get some feathers and have a party.
The decision of uniting these two unions is where it ought to be, in the hands of the members. The desperate attempts to stop members from using their voice are over.
Tomorrow we will be one strong union that is ready and determined to tackle the challenges that face us together. Let’s turn the guns where they belong….toward ORGANIZING work, not toward each other.
Newsflash! There are 195,000 members of SAG & AFTRA but only 131,000 ballots were mailed. So the voices of 64,000 members have already been silenced and ignored. That doesn’t even count the voice of those who have joined since January. To add further insult, the only way all of the ballots could be counted is if there is a crystal ball at the post office in Washington that will telepathically read each ballot and send a result to the Wilshire Blvd office in Los Angeles in time for their 1:00pm announcement. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math that we never had a VOICE!
Who do you plan on tarring, Blackdog ?
Plaintiffs or defendants ?
Just curious.
A sad and hopeless effort to spin a loss. The judge, in legal terms, gave no support to the main argument. This will only end with more member dues being spent on a defense. The word “frivolous” is wildly insufficient. It is time to practice acceptance, rather than opposition. join with your brethren and work towards a brighter future post-merger. But I suspect that the persistence of ego and “we must be right and they must be wrong” won’t allow that kind of reconciliation. Very very sad.
Obviously, you haven’t read the ruling yourself before posting on a public forum. Which makes you look “very, very sad.”
Im not your brethren, brother. I’m a clear headed individual, who finds your rhetoric tiresome, misleading, and quite possibly evil. I have read the complete documents, as few have. Your merger is a sham. Should it go through, time will reveal this – and what will you have to say then, I wonder.
It is time to practice acceptance, rather than opposition. join with your brethren and work towards a brighter future post-merger.
WOW! Bit of a mindless drone aren’t you?
Sorry. I agree with M. This merger is a disaster.
Agreed strongly
This stop fighting and just accept that you have no say attitude does not sit well with me. The only people for this merger have bought into the PR. After the huge housing market/financial crisis we have faced as a country it is astounding to me that any union member would vote yes on blind faith that everything will work out. This is life. Not a fairy tale. You need to look out for yourself, and that begins with the FACTS. if there aren’t any to be had….then wait until there are some.
I will not lie down and accept a decision to merge.
It is also very alerting to me that I received a barage of VOTE YES campaign flyers in my mail for weeks and none for NO. Only to find out that SAG refused to provide member names for a VOTE NO contingency. That is so shady. And wrong.
We are all in for a seriously brutal wake up call.
I VOTED AGAINST MERGER, THE LAST TWO TIMES. I LEARNED FROM MY MISTAKE. UNION PRINCIPLE ROLES PAYING ONLY $100.00 PER DAY. UNION BACKGROUND JOBS, PAYIMG THE NON-UNION RATE OF $64.00 FOR 8 HOURS. DUAL EARNINGS, MALING IT HARDER TO GET A P & H, CREDIT. BIDDING WARS. THIS TIME I VOTED YES TO AFTRA, AND YES TO SAG. I HOPE WE GET THE 60% NEEDED FROM SAG MEMBERS. I KNOW WE WILL GET IT FROM AFTRA MEMBERS
It must be freeing to be so ignorant. And placing your comment in caps won’t help with the simple ridiculousness of it.
Nothing will change for background actors. No, I take that back. There will be much more competition for the same amount of roles and the same amount of covered zones. Merger will not change that. Unless, of course, in 2014 the entire membership is willing to go out on strike to make things better for background actors. Hey George, Tom, Robert…. Will you be willing to put your production schedules on hold to go out on strike for background actors? Hello?! (all I hear are crickets)
You will continue to have the same problems of qualifying for P&H for the next few years. In fact, get ready for a hefty increase in premiums by July and a cut in benefits.
And just wait for the upcoming commercial contract negotiations, lead by the same people who swore that the 2000 strike was a waste of time and the ever delusional Allen Lulu (although SAG achieved jurisdiction in new media held onto class A commercial residuals, the contract is now worth over $850 million… but i get the impression you have no idea what I’m talking about). Do you actually think these people are going to hold firm on anything? If so, you are delusional. Get ready to bend over.
Having read the decision, I was honestly made aware it favored the defendants, no doubt. Otero gave plaintiffs their due, yes, and I personally believe this will be a bad move for actors if the vote is “yes” on Friday.
Not being a lawyer, I got the clear message, however, Otero was making his own take known: “it’s your own union business, there has not been a glaring violation of the SAG constitution, and I overstep my bounds if I stop or impound the vote.”
Nevertheless, it should be noted in 2003, Scott Wilson filed an 11th hour lawsuit and it was completely dismissed. BUT, the membership voted merger down anyway. This time, again, the bottom line will be “who voted?”
If the answer was ” 40% plus?” I think merger passes. If the answer was “25-35%, and a LOT of older members, including those with pending or active pensions,” I think it fails.
If a ton of regional folks came out who have no dog in this fight, merger passes. The problem is, the regions will receive no benefit. there will not be more work. Background will receive no benefit. There will simply be more competition.
Another bottom line is this government of SAG made a conscious decision since UFS took over, not to protect a very large and disproportionate rise in TV going to AFTRA. Not contesting that gives the lie to the limp defense of our leadership. Why didn’t they defend SAG? Because it was their intention to weaken SAG, that’s why. And they succeeded.
Why would they NOT do a pre-merger actuarial impact study? Why would they consciously choose NOT to give the membership that information from actuaries, instead, inserting the opinions of a handful of lawyers, with NO real study and NO numbers? And what did the lawyers say? “Legally you can merge, and legally you can try to merge the plan.”
That’s not news. There is simply no credible explanation for the lack of a full study. The court simply points out, essentially, “well if you don’t want vital information, and it is the decision of the national board not to provide it, there is nothing I can do about that.”
And, he’s right. But it in no way diminishes the obviousness of the intentional withholding of a true actuarial study. There is no remotely credible explanation for NOT doing that study, except, “we knew it would produce a no vote.”
Which leads me to my final point. Have you read Robert Carlson’s declaration to the court? The SAG trustee who had the guts to speak out? It’s devastating. DEVASTATING. And the AFTRA trustees in their distancing themselves from the findings of the “feasibility” study, said, essentially, “yeah, great, these 7 lawyers think you can legally try to merge the plans. That opinion has NOTHING to do with what WE might have to say on the matter of what it means MONEY-WISE, were we to do a study.”
Speaks volumes.
Who knows? You fuck with members pending or current pension benefits they EARNED, and get outvoted by regional actors who haven’t qualified and never will? Well, nobody put a gun to whoever is responsible in SAG for the erosion of centralized Hollywood power over the past 20 years, to make the right moves in times like this. If this goes down, truth is, the leaderships of SAG should have taken steps to avoid being outvoted years ago, by the regions, and a monolithic NY region vote, one that allows NO dissent in the boardroom, since Eric Bogosian, who they dealt with by simply not telling him about meetings and votes at times (his words, not mine).
Well, that’s playing with fire.
Friday, we see if we get burned
If SAG goes down, there is plenty of blame to go around – and a very litigious future ahead.
“Another bottom line is this government of SAG made a conscious decision since UFS took over, not to protect a very large and disproportionate rise in TV going to AFTRA. Not contesting that gives the lie to the limp defense of our leadership. Why didn’t they defend SAG? Because it was their intention to weaken SAG, that’s why. And they succeeded.”
What planet do you live on? PRODUCERS make the decision about which union to go with (under the current circumstances), not the Unions, or the Boards of the Unions, or frequently even the stars (witness Charlie Sheen, son of virulent anti-merger mouthpiece Martin working an AFTRA contract on his new show, produced by his Dad’s and Brother’s company).
It was Membership First that blew it in the 2008 negotiations. Producers considered SAG a liability to be avoided with all the instability and idiotic moves by THAT leadership. No matter your allegiances, any outside observer would give them at least 50% of the blame for where we are today. I blame them considerably more. Their echo-chamber stomping of democracy (that continues with this erroneous lawsuit) got us where we are today. They practically GAVE all the work to AFTRA with their 18-month campaign to discredit the sister union – which membership didn’t buy! If you’re leading but no one is following, guess what… you’re not leading!
We’re voting yes for merger so we can SAVE the union for everybody – including the likes of you.
Thank you Michael!
These fear mongers forgot who it was that got SAG into the mess to begin with. I’m a cardholder in both Unions, if you were paying attention you would know Membership First blew it.
I support UFS because they are level headed working Actors. They use common sense, business sense.
Hoping for a big YES tomorrow.
After the complete mess made of SAG by the brilliant reign of Rosenberg and his losers who don’t work as actors at all, the only thing left is for the two to merge. It has become impossible to make a living other wise. Voting against this is like voting against yourself and doesn’t make sense at all. Unless of course you are a loser who don’t work under either union and has nothing to do with your time.
All moot at this point anyway cause it is over. The merger went thru. How could it not? A year or so more of these losers wasting the unions money in courts and they will all go back to the Silver Spoon and talk about the one job they had. In the meantime we in NYC can get back to making a living.
Are you Kidding Me!! You think that Martin Sheen and Ed Harris have had ONE ACTING JOB!!! Not to mention the other Plaintiffs in this Lawsuit!! I voted in FAVOR of the Merger, but I would NEVER show this kind of DISRESPECT to my Fellow Actors!! What kind of Brotherhood Among Actors are YOU Demonstrating!!!!
I love this need to continue to say ” hey Mr. Man! Producers chose AFTRA!” Yes they did . The POINT is – so did SAG! Our elected leadership and top staff CHOSE not to contest the poaching of SAG jurisdiction , something NO previous government of SAG – pro, con, or neutral on merger would EVER have allowed. You may get your merger, but the obvious truth of HOW you got it is on a hard drive somewhere, and the full truth that this has been a possibly criminal hustle backed by pro-merger SAG, AFTRA and the AMPTP to get a producer compliant union that never strikes – is never going to change – short or long term. The truth is a bee-yotch.
Matt,
You keep saying AFTRA “poached” the tv shows from SAG. The facts are SAG — under Rosenberg, Allen and Johnson — made unreasonable demands during contracts talks with the AMPTP. Finally the produces said enough and called AFTRA and said, essentially, “we can’t reach a deal with SAG and we want to get these shows done. These actors are your members, too. Do you want the shows?”
If that’s your idea of poaching then you are hopelessly misinformed.
Oh, by the way, 82% of SAG members felt it was better to merge than buy the unbelievable drivel you’ve been spouting under your many names.
Did I mention 82% of SAG members disagree with you?
Bob Butler
Reporter, KCBS Radio
Vice President, SAG-AFTRA National Board
Dear Broadcaster/Reporter, Bob Butler (KCBS employee?):
Congratulations! And, ‘To the victors go the spoils!’
AFTRA Broadcasters and KCBS, et al., have won!
The SAG-AFTRA merger MAY work out just fine for you, Bob, and for the other Broadcasters who are permitted to work both union and NON-union aka “non-jurisdictional;” but, merger may be most advantageous for your (and Actors) employers, the Networks and KCBS RADIO and Television.
In my opinion:
AFTRA and its Broadcaster members may have simply aided and abetted Performers’ employers to succeed where, for years, historically speaking, CBS and the other Networks, AMPTP, and Ad Agencies, have failed in getting rid of the great Screen ACTORS Guild (which had always been a thorn in their sides)!
Clearly, Broadcasters, some of whom, may be beholden to their Conservative masters, KCBS in partcular, ‘did good’ when they got the pro-merger message out to SAG and AFTRA members. Undoubtedly, for this, you may even be rewarded with temporary a gift from your paymasters.
BUT, hey, not so fast! AFTRA and Broadcasters should not take all of the credit for the destruction of SAG since the Deregulation of Media Outlets also played a significant role in the ultimate Conservative corporate take-over of ALL of Media via the Radio and Television air-waves.
Then, too, the supreme court’s decision in re Citizens United was extremely important, too, since that Ruling declared: “Corporations are people.”
CBS is and always has been, needless to say, a FOR PROFIT corporation; so, very likely this sc decision must have benefitted it, significantly.
Also, since corporate owned Media, in large part, is known for being both Conservative as well as anti-union… well… Hey, but you knew that, yes?
And, since the more producer compliant AFTRA has now been ‘gifted’ with nearly all of what was/is the former SAG jurisdiction of scripted primetime dramatic TV shows, it begs the question: How has merger with AFTRA benefitted Actors so far?
But, not to worry… you, and other AFTRA Broadcasters, shouldn’t have any problem finding work. After all, you can simply walk across the hall and accept a NON-union aka ‘non-jurisdictional’ gig, can’t you?
While, in the meantime, ACTORS (members of the same ONE UNION) SAG-AFTRA may NOT do this since Actors must HONOR Rule One.
Remember the cry?: “All for one and one for all!”
Unfortunately, however, some Actors may now think that the “ONE” of “ONE UNION” only stands for AFTRA.
Isn’t that why perhaps, “SHAFTRA” may have become their nickname for the newly CONsolidated NON-union, ONE UNION, sag-AFTRA?
ra